The Death of Life
The Death of Life is an action-adventure video game developed by Insomniac Canada, published by Bethesda Softworks, and distributed by Disney Interactive Studios, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It was released for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U on April 20, 2013. The game follows the stories of Blake Hearn, a soldier who is assigned to escort a young girl named Misty across a post-apocalyptic United States, while the other part follows Woody the Cowboy Doll from Toy Story, and The Iron Giant as they travel across the post-apocalyptic world while being accompanied by a young lion cub named Kopa. Development on the game began in 2009 after the release of Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident. The relationship between Blake, Misty, and The Iron Giant became the central focus of the game, with all other elements developed around it. Actors Matt Damon, Rumer Willis, Jim Hanks, Pete L. J. Dickson, and Jonah Bobo portrayed Blake, Misty, Woody, The Iron Giant, and Kopa respectively through voice and motion capture. The original score was composed and performed by Bear McCreary. Following it's announcement in October 2011, The Death of Life was widely anticipated. Upon release, the game critical acclaim. Praise was directed at its story, narrative, gameplay, visual and sound design, characterization, voice cast, depiction of Disney and Warner Bros. characters, and Damon, Willis and Dickson's performances as the main characters, although the multiplayer was not well received. The Death of Life became one of the best-selling games of 2013, selling over 1.2 million units in its first week and over seven million units within thirteen months. It won over fifteen awards and it is considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time. Gameplay The Death of Life is an action adventure game played from a third-person perspective. Players traverse post-apocalyptic environments such as towns, buildings, and sewers to advance the story. Players use firearms, improvised weapons, and stealth to defend against hostile humans and robotic humanoids. For most of the game, players control Blake, a soldier of the Resistance against the humanoids, who is tasked with escorting a young girl named Misty across the United States; Misty and other companions are controlled by the artificial intelligence. In combat, players can use long-ranged weapons, such as rifles, shotguns, and bows, and short-range weapons such as handguns and short-barreled shotgun. Co-operative gameplay The game has an online cooperative mode for the campaign. Players control Misty and have the same gameplay as the single-player. Multiplayer Alongside the campaign mode is an online multiplayer mode, which allows players to compete in several maps. In each multiplayer match, there are two enemy teams: four survivors and four scavengers, and there are three types of games for multiplayer to compete in, played in five different maps: the modes are Team Deathmatch, Private Rescue and Cry for Help. The first mode is a simple PvP combat scenario, with teams pitted against each other, and the winning team being the one to kill the opposing team in three separate matches. In the second mode, the "survivors" team must take medical supplies to a specific point on the map, while the "scavengers" must reach a certain number of kills, both within a ten-minute time limit. The third mode, Cry for Help, involves the "survivors" exploring the maps and retrieving batteries for defended radio beacons while being hunted by the "scavengers". Across all three modes, weapons and destroyable environments from the single-player campaign are carried over. Plot Development Insomniac Canada began developing The Death of Life after the release of Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident in August 2009. It was the first time in the company's history where Insomniac Canada split into two teams; while one team developed Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code (2011), the other began work on The Death of Life. Game directors Chris Roberts and Jeremy Podeswa and creative director Alex Hutchinson were chosen to lead development on The Death of Life. Because Disney Interactive Studios was busy with other games at the time, including Insomniac Canada's Artemis Fowl series, the concept was pitched to Microsoft, who showed no interest in publishing the title. However, Bethesda Softworks was impressed with the concept, they signed a deal with Insomniac Canada to have the game published by them. Story The game's story was written by Marc Guggenheim along with Corey May, comic book writer John Ney Rieber, and Keith Arem. The main goal was to make the story "believable". The team was also inspired by The Matrix, The Terminator, Back to the Future, Primer, and other films. The game directly explain the cause of the epidemic; Roberts attributed this to the team's focus on the characters, as opposed to the humanoids. While the team preferred to explain the events through subtext, they also decied to explicitly explain the cause of the epidemic. Roberts compared the subtext included in The Death of Life to that of Crysis 3 (2013). He felt that the latter had spawned various conversations within the industry, which he sees as a sign of a maturing industry. "I've seen enough good stories in books and film. Now I want to see them in video games," said Roberts. In order to make the game as realistic as possible, the team conducted extensive research for the setting. Taking influences from Terminator Salvation and 9'', Insomniac Canada created a world that would force players to make decisions and utilize their limited supplies effectively. When writing the script, May, Rieber and Arem tried to exclude "fancy dialogue", keeping everything "short and natural". Community strategist Eric Monacelli has stated that the narrative's overarching themes are "love, loyalty and redemption", assuring their importance in the game, and fellow community strategist Arne Meyer said that the game's violence fit the narrative. Naughty Dog member Bruce Straley, the game director of ''The Last of Us, reiterated this, stating "you have to have the dark to have the light". Roberts agreed to Straley's statement saying "Without dark, there can't be light". Character development Blake is voiced by actor Matt Damon, while Misty is voiced by actress Rumer Willis. Their performances were mostly recorded using motion capture technology; approximately 85% of the game's animations were recorded using motion capture, with remaining audio elements recorded later in a studio. Though the team quickly felt that Willis fit the role of Misty, they spent more time selecting the actor of Blake, as the chemistry between the two characters was imperative to the game. After Damon and Willis played alongside each other, the team realised that the former perfectly fit the role of Blake, despite the actor's young age. Roberts attributed Damon's voice and movement to the team's choice of casting him. Damon and Willis contributed greatly to the development of the characters. For example, Damon convinced Roberts that Blake would care for Tanya due to his loneliness, and Willis convinced Rieber to re-write the character of Misty in a stronger and more defensive manner. Some of the dialogue between the duo was improvised by the actors; Roberts attributed this to the fact that the script included an unnecessary amount of lines during gameplay sections, and he allowed the actors to choose what they felt was necessary. The characters of Blake and Misty were the basis of the game; the development between the characters was established first, and the game's other concepts followed. The character interactions were inspired by the relationship between Nathan Drake and Tenzin in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, in turn inspired by the video game Ico. The game's protagonists represent the two eras that are shown in the game; Blake represents the world before the apocalypse, having spent most of his life during this period, while Ellie represents the world after the apocalypse, as she was born in the post-apocalyptic world. While the former is emotionally damaged due to the loss that he has experienced, the latter maintains an optimistic view of life, having become familiar to the damaged world; spending time with each other saw these qualities overlapping, with Blake become more lively, and Misty learning more survival skills. The team quickly realised that most of the character development was too similar to Naughty Dog's The Last of Us. To ensure they weren't doing the exact same method as Naughty Dog, the team added three main characters to the cast; The Iron Giant, Woody from Toy Story and Kopa, the son of Simba and Nala from The Lion King. In the final results, the team felt it would work very well if there was a second storyline to the main. Veteran Canadian actor Pete L. J. Dickson was chosen to voice the Giant in the game. When approached by Roberts about the role, Dickson immediately accepted the part, as he loved the 1999 animated film as a child. To portray the character, Dickson deepened his voice to make him sound more like the character. Design According to Roberts they experimented with different gameplay mechanics, some of which they judged to make the game too slow or too tactical. They intended to "recapture the action spectacle" featured in Remedy's Max Payne series, along with several modern iterations. The game was designed to be the concept of time, but the pacing did not accommodate the elements of this kind of gameplay. As a result, the team opted to include a broader theme: Survive together. According to Roberts, the theme of time connected all the elements featured in the game. The setting also allowed the team to add new gameplay mechanics. They created The Death of Life as a third-person shooter because of their past experiences with the genre and because they thought that the third-person perspective would allow them to show a strong leading character, while a purely story-oriented game would not feel like a triple A title. Technology and gameplay development The team created two new in-house engines called Day and Night and Ocean Wave to satisfy their needs of the game. To represent the concept and have a detailed destruction system, the team created lots of environments which put the player character in the midst of chaos. The artificial intelligence (AI) was created to coordinate with players on an intimate level, as opposed to the action elements from their previous projects; the addition of Misty, The Iron Giant, Donald Duck and Goofy as AI was also a major contributor to the engine. The team intentionally added a feature in which Misty remains close to Blake, in order to avoid being conceived as a "burden". Programmer Taylor Dyke stated that, when working on Misty as AI, he tried to imagine her experiences throughout the game's events, in an attempt to achieve realism. The enemy AI, considered one of the most important features of the game, was developed to make random choices; they study their surroundings, finding tactics to attack the player. This uniqueness to gameplay was a factor into the attempt at making players feel emotions towards the enemies. References Category:2013 video games Category:PlayStation 3 games Category:Xbox 360 games Category:Wii U Games Category:Rated T games Category:Insomniac Canada Category:Disney Games Category:Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Category:Bethesda Softworks